Saturday, February 11, 2023

The preliminary report of the monitoring of the legal framework and the situation of its implementation in the May 14, 2023 local elections, drawn up by the Academy of Political Studies (ASP) in cooperation with the Institute of Political Studies (ISP), is published.

Some key assessments of the report are:

• The country is heading to the local elections with the same problems encountered in the last elections and not addressed by the Assembly and political parties. Albanian citizens were denied in these elections the opportunity to have an electoral reform to reflect the recommendations of the OSCE/ODIHR and civil society.

• The CEC is trying to positively influence the solution of the problems, but in essential matters it does not have decision-making powers and the time until the election remains limited for emergency legal intervention.

• The ambiguities already identified in the powers to control the restrictions on the use of state resources are likely to facilitate the commitment of public funds and state administration in the May 14 election campaign, even more at risk due to the fact that all local government is in the hands of the majority.

• The leak of the list of users of the "Activist" app raises suspicions about a mechanism that encourages the involvement of government employees in political activities. With the start of the election campaign, it is necessary for the Socialist Party to temporarily suspend the application, or at least, the accounts of users in public administration positions, provided for in the limitations of the Electoral Code.

This report is developed within the project "Strong partnerships for sustainable reforms - Strengthening the role of civil society in addressing the challenges of free and fair elections", with the support of the Embassy of the Kingdom of the Netherlands in Albania.

The report might be consulted here